


set the scene for the curtain must close

by thewayaround



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Butterfly Effect, Dean Winchester Gets a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fate & Destiny, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Post-Finale, as he should
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 06:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30034674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewayaround/pseuds/thewayaround
Summary: Dean Winchester's fate line, should it be seen, would look as though a child was given a pen and told to draw the squiggliest line they could, filled with loops and twists and line crossings so dark that it was hard to tell where each branching began. His fate followed him into death just as it had followed him in life. Dean Winchester’s story, as everyone was led to believe, had not ended in that barn. So, holding tight to her strings of puppetry, fate prepared to play this performance out the way it should end. She wouldn’t close the curtains on Dean Winchester until the final scene was done.Castiel’s line, when compared to Dean Winchester’s, would have appeared on paper to be the work of fine penmanship. Completely straight, no branching or bumps. Castiel’s fate, unlike the fates of others, was one solid path. There was no other direction it could have gone. His destiny played out the way it was written: living and dying for those he would learn to love more than any of the ones he had loved in Heaven.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	set the scene for the curtain must close

**Author's Note:**

> it's 5:20 in the morning because my dumbass forgot about daylight savings, but please take this thing i wrote in one sitting while listening to drops of jupiter by train on a loop for two hours.

What is to be said about fate? We cannot purely look at Dean Winchester's and come to a decision on whether fate is a cruel mistress or a peacemaker. While this, ultimately, is Dean Winchester’s story, it is safe to presume that it is fate’s, as well. This is because fate, at the end of the day, has a starring role in all lives.

The day Dean Winchester died, something in the universe clicked into place. A predetermined outcome, whether caused by blood or name or his story in Death's book, unfolded. It wasn't like this story could have ended any other way. Everyone who knew Dean Winchester -- the soldier, the expert hunter, the man who followed each command without question -- knew that the possibility of him leaving the life and maybe even having something he could even consider normal was never in the cards.

Except Dean Winchester was not that man. Cass had told him as much, that day in the bunker where everything went to shit. Dean was no soldier. He wasn't a blind follower. He evaluated a situation, trying to figure out the odds and the ends and the in betweens that would keep everyone safe. He loved, maybe a bit too strongly, and he cared enough to put everyone else's lives above his own. Expert hunter. Dean had never wanted that life.

Yet, at the end of it all, it was the life he had chosen. The life he knew -- the life _everyone_ knew -- would bring his downfall.

Dean Winchester's fate line, should it be seen, would look as though a child was given a pen and told to draw the squiggliest line they could, filled with loops and twists and line crossings so dark that it was hard to tell where each branching began. His fate followed him into death just as it had followed him in life. Dean Winchester’s story, as everyone was led to believe, had not ended in that barn. So, holding tight to her strings of puppetry, fate prepared to play this performance out the way it should end. She wouldn’t close the curtains on Dean Winchester until the final scene was done.

It isn’t as though Dean knew any of this. Why should he? No man, not even Dean Winchester, truly knows where his fate line ends.

Bobby met him once he passed over. Told him what had happened, where everyone was.

“Well, Cass helped.”

The thing about angels is they have no fate lines. They aren’t supposed to, anyway. That’s what made Castiel different.

Somewhere in the twelve years since he plotted himself like a resilient ivy in the Winchesters’ fate lines, his own had appeared. You couldn’t tell when, precisely. Maybe around the time he lost his grace. Perhaps the line was residual of Jimmy Novak. Though, all lines of fate belong to the individual. No two are alike. Novak’s line had been cut long before Castiel’s appeared.

Castiel’s line, when compared to Dean Winchester’s, would have appeared on paper to be the work of fine penmanship. Completely straight, no branching or bumps. Castiel’s fate, unlike the fates of others, was one solid path. There was no other direction it could have gone. His destiny played out the way it was written: living and dying for those he would learn to love more than any of the ones he had loved in Heaven.

* * *

Dean drives until he reaches a bridge. A wide river flows beneath it, winding and stretching around bends and into the horizon. The water is rushing loudly as he steps out of the car, capping like waves in the ocean, almost like it’s been raining. He breathes, and the air fills his lungs.

Then, he screams, loud and rough. It’s like a weight falls from his shoulders and catches a ride on the wind.

He laughs and runs his hands through his hair, spinning slowly until he’s having to catch himself against the railing. The paint is red and chipping beneath his fingers. He stares at the water rushing beneath him, thinks about screaming again just to make sure the weight he’s been carrying for 36 years is finally off his back, but instead, he just breathes.

The bridge becomes his place.

Sometimes he’ll sit on the hood of the Impala and read; other times, he’ll fish. Most of the time, though, he just sits, his legs hanging over the bridge and swinging like a child’s. He’ll close his eyes and breathe, leaning back on his hands.

Jack joins him sometimes, when he isn’t off fixing all of Chuck’s messes. So does Charlie, and sometimes Kevin. He doesn’t trust anyone else to see this place. It’s like it was created for him. Hell, maybe it was.

He still hasn’t seen Cass. Honestly, he’s too scared to ask where the man is. Scared of what he’ll have to face once they see each other, scared of what he may say or do.

His thoughts are invasive, like a cup someone overfilled. Sometimes he wants them to go away. Other times, he holds them like a lifeline; he holds them like they’re the only thing he has left of the life he once knew. Maybe they are, but it doesn’t matter now. He’s on his bridge, and he’s warm and sticky with sunlight. He’s laying back on the asphalt, his feet going numb where his legs hang over the bridge.

His face feels sore and tender, and he almost laughs when he realizes sunburn is still a thing in Heaven. When he opens his eyes, he’s staring at the sky. It big and bright and so blue he could drown in it, and he feels, for the first time in so long, peace.

It’s been a year. A year since that day.

He hasn’t seen Sam, even though he knows it’s possible. Jack tells him how he is, though. Keeps him updated. He’s got a girl.

Dean lays on the hood of the Impala, a blanket beneath him and sunscreen smeared on his face. It does nothing for the burn already there, but it will keep it from getting worse. He stares up at the sky, listens as the water rushing beneath the bridge mixes with Bryan Adams’ voice playing quietly through the speakers.

_Baby, you're all that I want, when you're lyin' here in my arms. I'm findin' it hard to believe we're in heaven._

He’d never admit he liked love songs, just like he’d never admit he got Train's _Drops of Jupiter_ stuck in his head for three weeks the day he heard it playing on a truck stop’s loudspeaker in Arizona.

The sky is still so blue. It may crush him one day, he thinks, readjusting his arms beneath his head.

“Dean.”

He nearly cracks his face against the asphalt as he tumbles off the Impala’s hood with the grace of a newborn giraffe.

It takes a moment to catch his breath. The gravel is rough beneath his palms, digging through his jeans. His heart is beating a mile a minute; he can hear it in his ears, in his head, feel it in his fingertips.

“Cass?”

* * *

Fate is a funny thing, something that can butterfly and butterfly until the paths to the outcomes are twisted and blurred. Those outcomes change with each decision, the paths to them warping and breaking along the way. It isn’t either of those things mentioned before, not a mistress nor a peacemaker. It is simply a will, a way. One path isn’t decided before us when we enter the world. The choices we make decide how our stories will play out. Fate is just there to make sure the paths aren’t lead astray, to make sure everything works out the way it’s supposed to.

Dean Winchester sits stunned on a bridge he had made his home. Castiel stands some feet away, like he doesn’t know what to do or say. Neither one of them do in this moment. Fate holds their strings high, then readies her scissors.

This is it. The final scene before the curtain falls.

* * *

“Cass,” he says again, struggling to pick himself up. Gravel digs into his palms; a piece slices the heel of his palm, but he barely notices it.

Cass takes a step forward. “Dean,” he smiles, and Dean is on him before anything else can come out, nearly toppling both of them to the ground. He doesn’t think he’s ever held anyone this tight, at least not since the night his mother died and John had shoved baby Sam into his arms.

“How is this—” Dean starts, thinks better of it, starts over. “How are you—“

He’s fighting the words, still listening to his own heartbeat. He’s holding onto Cass so tight the man definitely feels the beat where Dean’s palm is pressed tightly behind his left shoulder. His other hand is tangled into the side of that stupid trench coat, squeezing it like he’s trying to keep it from dissolving beneath his fingertips. Maybe that’s why he’s holding Cass the way he is.

“Don’t disappear on me,” he says, and his voice is desperate and choked. “Don’t go away.”

Cass doesn’t say anything for a moment, then his arms are around Dean just as tight. “I won’t,” he says, and Dean chokes on a sob.

“I can’t—” he sobs, choking on the words. He stares at the blurry blue of the sky, then buries his face into Cass’s neck. “I can’t—“

“It’s okay,” Cass interrupts, squeezing him. His fists tangle into Dean’s shirt, just between his shoulder blades. “It’s okay, Dean. You can let go.”

So, he does. He lets it all out, holding Cass against him and sobbing into his skin.

Cass holds back.

It takes a while for him to stop crying. By the time he’s done, he’s exhausted and there’s a sore lump in his throat. His nose is stopped up and his cheeks burn where the tears have irritated his sunburn. He refuses to let Cass go, but it’s okay, because Cass won’t let him go either. He does pull back enough to look the man in the face.

“You…” He sucks in breath. “You were gone. You were dead.” He detangles his hands from Cass’s coat, but they’re immediately on the man again. His hands find Cass’s jaw, his fingers on his cheeks, his thumbs tucked just beside the corner of his eyes. They’re so blue, blue like the sky, blue like the river beneath them. “How are you here?”

“Jack,” Cass replies, his voice rough like the gravel under their shoes. “He got me out.”

“How?”

The man shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.”

Dean runs his thumbs just beneath Cass’s temples. “You know, you’re a real asshole for dropping that bomb on me in the bunker,” he laughs wetly, because he’s definitely about the start crying again. “And for going AWOL this past year.”

“I’m sorry,” Cass says. “I had to do something. I had to save everyone. I had to save you. I couldn’t… I couldn’t let you die, Dean.”

Dean can’t help himself. He laughs despite the fresh wave of tears pouring from his eyes. “We lost everyone, man,” he chokes. “We needed you, Cass, and then we lost you. _I_ lost you.”

Cass stares at him, like he’s simultaneously lost for words and thinking of what to say. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he eventually whispers.

“We could have figured something out,” Dean says. “We could have tried something else.”

Cass shakes his head. “There was nothing else, Dean. You know that.”

Dean sniffs, trying to stop the tears. “Yeah, well,” he starts, “it’s not like it matters now.”

He smiles, and Cass smiles back. “No,” he says. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

Dean moves his thumbs again. “You’re really here?” he asks. “You’re not going to disappear?”

Cass shakes his head, tightening his hold in Dean’s shirt.

“Good,” Dean says, then leans in.

* * *

Dean Winchester kisses him, and the lines are cut.

Fate drops her scissors as river water caps beneath the feet of two men. She drops the strings in her jar, a hunk of glass that will never fill, as their ending hits.

Dean Winchester kisses Castiel, and Castiel kisses him back, and they laugh wetly into each other’s lips as the curtain closes.

Take a bow, boys, because this show is finally, unmistakably, over.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: sncrlynwtms


End file.
